What I am going to say here will be highly unpopular with some people. They will accuse me of bigotry or worse. They are mistaken.
Some people are not happy about the bodies they have. They want to be something else – a male, a female, non-binary, any of the wide variety of genders and identities that are possible. Because of their dissatisfaction, we are required to call them by their preferred pronouns.
I can sympathize with people who are dissatisfied with their bodies. Some people really deeply want to be something else – often a man wants to be a woman, or vice versa. They often will undergo difficult and painful surgeries to accomplish this – they can have their bodies remade into what they want.
I don’t have a problem with this, in theory. It’s their body. Let them modify it according to their wishes. People get tattoos, piercing, other body modifications. Why not gender “reassignment?” I’m not sure where they get “reassignment,” but there it is.
The thing is, these people are not really the gender they chose. A trans woman is not a woman, and a trans man is not a man. No matter how their bodies are manipulated, there are certain unchangeable facts that identify their gender. Among other things, the presence of absence of Y chromosomes is an indication.
This creates serious problems. I don’t much care about what washroom they use. Let the washrooms be gender-neutral. Who cares? But it gets trickier when discussing things such as sports. Is a trans woman equivalent to a naturally-born woman? No. There are differences, and there always will be differences. These differences may give trans women an unfair advantage over natural women. I don’t know whether trans men have any advantage over natural men.
One hot topic is pronouns. Everyone is supposed to have the right to choose their pronouns – he/him, she/her, they/them, and so on. I don’t feel this is a serious issue, but some people do. If I happen to use the wrong pronouns, they might get offended.
The thing is, claiming to be something does not make you that thing. A person who claims to be a woman, who was born a man, isn’t a woman no matter how much he insists on it. At best he might be seen as a trans woman, and her pronoun changed accordingly. But we’re playing make-believe here.
At this point many readers will be foaming at the mouth at my horrible “transphobia” or “homophobia” or whatever. And yet – I haven’t said a thing against anyone. The worst thing I’ve done is to disagree with what some people say about this subject. I haven’t said that anyone should be punished, or discriminated against, or otherwise mistreated. I haven’t suggested that anyone is less of a person, or not a legitimate member of society. All I have done is to suggest that trans is incomplete, and that differences will always exist.
The flaw in thinking that we should all be able to “identify” as male, female, binary, nonbinary, etc., is this: where does it end? If you were born a male and identify as female, why couldn’t I, who was born White, identify as Black? To my understanding, there are treatments available where I could, in fact, develop a dark pigmentation that would cause me to resemble a Black person. If I undergo this treatment and turn dark, does that make me Black?
I’m guessing that most people wouldn’t regard me as Black, even if I had the treatment. But why should this be denied me, when a person can be considered whatever gender they prefer?
I’ve noticed that a lot of people are rabid about this issue. They have their rules, and if you disagree, you are transphobic or otherwise bigoted. And really, I’m not. I don’t give a shit what gender you are, what gender you want to be, what pronouns you want to use. That’s your choice. I don’t claim that you’re any less a person than anyone else, or that you should be kept away from children, or that somehow you’re deficient. I just disagree. And that’s enough to get lynched, at least online.
Why is that, I wonder? How did we get to this place, where merely disagreeing is considered bigotry or worse? What ever happened to respectful debate?.
Gender Identity
What I am going to say here will be highly unpopular with some people. They will accuse me of bigotry or worse. They are mistaken.
Some people are not happy about the bodies they have. They want to be something else – a male, a female, non-binary, any of the wide variety of genders and identities that are possible. Because of their dissatisfaction, we are required to call them by their preferred pronouns.
I can sympathize with people who are dissatisfied with their bodies. Some people really deeply want to be something else – often a man wants to be a woman, or vice versa. They often will undergo difficult and painful surgeries to accomplish this – they can have their bodies remade into what they want.
I don’t have a problem with this, in theory. It’s their body. Let them modify it according to their wishes. People get tattoos, piercing, other body modifications. Why not gender “reassignment?” I’m not sure where they get “reassignment,” but there it is.
The thing is, these people are not really the gender they chose. A trans woman is not a woman, and a trans man is not a man. No matter how their bodies are manipulated, there are certain unchangeable facts that identify their gender. Among other things, the presence of absence of Y chromosomes is an indication.
This creates serious problems. I don’t much care about what washroom they use. Let the washrooms be gender-neutral. Who cares? But it gets trickier when discussing things such as sports. Is a trans woman equivalent to a naturally-born woman? No. There are differences, and there always will be differences. These differences may give trans women an unfair advantage over natural women. I don’t know whether trans men have any advantage over natural men.
One hot topic is pronouns. Everyone is supposed to have the right to choose their pronouns – he/him, she/her, they/them, and so on. I don’t feel this is a serious issue, but some people do. If I happen to use the wrong pronouns, they might get offended.
The thing is, claiming to be something does not make you that thing. A person who claims to be a woman, who was born a man, isn’t a woman no matter how much he insists on it. At best he might be seen as a trans woman, and her pronoun changed accordingly. But we’re playing make-believe here.
At this point many readers will be foaming at the mouth at my horrible “transphobia” or “homophobia” or whatever. And yet – I haven’t said a thing against anyone. The worst thing I’ve done is to disagree with what some people say about this subject. I haven’t said that anyone should be punished, or discriminated against, or otherwise mistreated. I haven’t suggested that anyone is less of a person, or not a legitimate member of society. All I have done is to suggest that trans is incomplete, and that differences will always exist.
The flaw in thinking that we should all be able to “identify” as male, female, binary, nonbinary, etc., is this: where does it end? If you were born a male and identify as female, why couldn’t I, who was born White, identify as Black? To my understanding, there are treatments available where I could, in fact, develop a dark pigmentation that would cause me to resemble a Black person. If I undergo this treatment and turn dark, does that make me Black?
I’m guessing that most people wouldn’t regard me as Black, even if I had the treatment. But why should this be denied me, when a person can be considered whatever gender they prefer?
I’ve noticed that a lot of people are rabid about this issue. They have their rules, and if you disagree, you are transphobic or otherwise bigoted. And really, I’m not. I don’t give a shit what gender you are, what gender you want to be, what pronouns you want to use. That’s your choice. I don’t claim that you’re any less a person than anyone else, or that you should be kept away from children, or that somehow you’re deficient. I just disagree. And that’s enough to get lynched, at least online.
Why is that, I wonder? How did we get to this place, where merely disagreeing is considered bigotry or worse? What ever happened to respectful debate?.